All I can say is if anything happens to anyone in my family I am the one person they are going to be looking at. Since I have lots of horror books, books on serial killers, true crime DVDs and I regularly read historic or serial killers I have not heard of on the website tru-crime. Goodness knows the police will have a field day with all that stuff. But I will also say that if you are a person whose mind is out of kilter then this stuff can have an effect on you, not saying it justifies anything but there is the odd occasion when it will have played a part.

Click to expand...

Plus, such a person might decide they're drawn to it. Note: I say they decide that they are. They might assume the same things which too many people assume; that such literature is something it really isn't.

Thank goodness someone alerted police and a tragedy was averted. But one passage in this article really stuck in my craw:

"In a photo, he can be seen picking an electric guitar with a skull on its shoulder strap; his preferred bands -- more than 190 of them in total -- are predominantly heavy metal.
His taste in movies is dominated by blood, gore, combat and fisticuffs. His favorite authors are Stephen King and the master of literary darkness, Edgar Allen Poe."

Ugh, really? Why is any of this stuff relevant to the news story? Stephen King, Edgar Allen Poe, and metal music are extremely popular forms of entertainment...just about every teen will have something "dark" if you look for it. By putting this part into the article, they are obviously implying that "dark" art and entertainment leads to violent or crazy behavior. Shame on the media for perpetuating this witch-hunt mentality!

Click to expand...

I AGREE, but to me it DEPENDS on what they are calling HEAVY METAL! I'm a ROCKER, & I like CERTAIN METAL, however I've HEARD some truly EVIL bands through the years, because I had FRIENDS that were into it! BELIEVE it or not, there were MANY EUROPEAN "metal" bands that ENCOURAGE VIOLENCE & EVIL! I can't speak for everyone, though I'm NOT perfect, I'm a CHRISTIAN, I used to have FRIENDS that WERE super FAR FROM GOOD!

I AGREE, but to me it DEPENDS on what they are calling HEAVY METAL! I'm a ROCKER, & I like CERTAIN METAL, however I've HEARD some truly EVIL bands through the years, because I had FRIENDS that were into it! BELIEVE it or not, there were MANY EUROPEAN "metal" bands that ENCOURAGE VIOLENCE & EVIL! I can't speak for everyone, though I'm NOT perfect, I'm a CHRISTIAN, I used to have FRIENDS that WERE super FAR FROM GOOD!

As a fan of "dark arts," my typical response to people I dislike and situations I dislike is to confine myself in my room and listen to copious amounts loud music, blog, and watch anime. The only harm being done is the lack of Vitamin D my skin gets from sunlight. Very frightening and evil indeed. I'm just a real lazy evil person. That must be it.

I think people want to know WHY. They tend to latch onto convenient reasons--whether the reasons make sense or not--and go from there. Blaming Stephen King or rock music is convenient, especially if you are ignorant of what they really are.

I think people want to know WHY. They tend to latch onto convenient reasons--whether the reasons make sense or not--and go from there. Blaming Stephen King or rock music is convenient, especially if you are ignorant of what they really are.

Although the news article did mention John LaDue's taste in music, film and literature it also said....

If his Facebook page is any indicator, LaDue is partial to the dark side, and he "likes" assault rifles: the AK-101, Heckler & Koch SL8 and Steyr TMP.

and went on...The teen idolized and studied the shooters responsible for the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado, according to a statement of probable cause. He allegedly told police that he wanted to carry out his attack on April 20, the anniversary of the massacre, but that April 20 this year was Easter and school was not in session.

So to be fair this news report did not, in my opinion, blame his planned "crazy behaviour" solely on his choice of listening, reading or viewing material.
However, if the "establishment" did come to believe that premise, (that minds can be warped by the material we read ), then SKMB members would be in big trouble.
We'd all be rounded up, and "committed", to protect the public from our possible atrocities !

Click to expand...

No kidding! The computer police would have to break down my door and drag me away in handcuffs! (what would the neighbours say - oh my)

While these kids are usually mentally disturbed, some kids are also just morons who like to copy what gets attention. There was an horrific case in England recently where a teacher was stabbed to death in a classroom by a 15 year pupil, and within a week there have 2 plots by kids to kill thier teacher foiled by police - one of them was 2 10 or 11 year olds planning to poison a teacher with bleach.

While these kids are usually mentally disturbed, some kids are also just morons who like to copy what gets attention. There was an horrific case in England recently where a teacher was stabbed to death in a classroom by a 15 year pupil, and within a week there have 2 plots by kids to kill thier teacher foiled by police - one of them was 2 10 or 11 year olds planning to poison a teacher with bleach.

While these kids are usually mentally disturbed, some kids are also just morons who like to copy what gets attention. There was an horrific case in England recently where a teacher was stabbed to death in a classroom by a 15 year pupil, and within a week there have 2 plots by kids to kill thier teacher foiled by police - one of them was 2 10 or 11 year olds planning to poison a teacher with bleach.

Click to expand...

Yep. In a 'faith' school, at that (Roman Catholic). To top it all off, the teacher shouldn't have been there. She was semi-retired, due to retire fully later in the year after umpteen years in the profession and at that school, and had gone in on one of her days off to help her class prepare for their final GCSE exams.
By all accounts she was a good teacher who everyone liked, but someone sure as hell didn't. Why? Time will tell.
I'm willing to bet there's the usual stuff about music, video games, movies and books trotted out, and it all always ignores the elephant in the room - that society itself needs to be looked at.
It was/is the same with football hooliganism. The argument was always that footie fans were 'animals' and didn't know how to behave, that football fanship itself was partisan by nature and the strong emotions irrationally invested in the fortunes of the club led to a tribal mindset. Which is true, but then, ultimately, that's just Nationalism on a smaller scale, and no one really bats an eyelid at strong feelings regarding nationality (though boundaries, etc, are still arbitrary; there's no physical line separating England from Scotland, for example. It's just the same dirt, stone and whatever else).
Again, the problem didn't lie in fans generally or fans of one club in particular. It became a focal point and release valve for tensions within society as a whole, and they went unaddressed. Things calmed down (though, as a long-time supporter of a local club who went to hundreds of games home and away, the risk of 'trouble' never went away; it was always there, bubbling not far under the surface), but often had little outpourings. Even then, no one saw the link between those events and what was going on within society - by and large, trouble at matches flared whenever the mood within society as a whole was dark and ugly. Racism has also flared up again, and it's being treated as a football problem (everyone branded as narrow-minded thuggish fans, regardless of individual viewpoint and ignorant of the fact that it's only ever a tiny minority of the total crowd). Society gets away scot-free again, even though the drivers for racist outpourings are evident (especially in Spain): too many people feeling too much of a pinch, desperation at their life chances dwindling away and anger at govts who seem to do nothing about it (except line their own pockets), and an apparent oversupply of cheap migrant labour who'll work longer hours for much lower pay than the indigenous population can afford to work for. (I say "apparent" because a lot of it, here at least, is media BS and scaremongering to create a false controversy. It's also being used politically in a classic case of "divide and rule" and "look what the left hand's doing. Ignore the right, nothing to see there" chicanery.)

Go back to these kids, and it's society that's to blame. They'll covet iPhones over the rights and lives of other human beings. They're focused on material things rather than what matters. That's not an argument for spiritual BS or metaphysical woo, just an observation that empty ownership and/or status symbol and wealth accumulation is prized above all else. I read a comment on a news story earlier: "Unfortunately, morality, decency, compassion and fairness don't pay the rent". So the society we have punishes positive behaviours (or virtue, if you like) and encourages immorality/amorality, indecency, indifference to others and unfairness, as these things will "pay the rent". In short, it's a supposed society that's (ironically?) chock-full of sociopaths. Which is what these kids have become.
It's not Stephen King or anyone else that's to blame for that. It's The System itself.

Mr Nobody, I don't agree. You're blaming society for the failings of a few immoral idiots. Where were the parents of these kids? Don't they bear the blame for not teaching their kids to respect others? At 10 years, the kids are old enough to understand what is right and what is not. It's not society to blame--it's the failings of the parents.